Quantum Mechanics, Einstein and Heisenberg

This articles going to be a bit rough as it's more about understanding the 2 opposing views in
the field of QM so I request you guys to please bear with me as Ill try my best to simplify it. We
are going to start with Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP). The reason for that it is one of
the core parts in the modern QM theory and this is in effect (what i think) where the two views
started to brew up. I am going to tell you about the conflicting views of Heisenberg and Einstein
which started with the HUP and eventually led to Einstein and Heisenberg (together with Bohr)
on their separate ways in trying to solve the problems of Quantum Mechanics.
So if you remember correctly from my previous article, I told you how Heisenberg created matrix
mechanics and Schrodinger came up with wave mechanics. But most of the physicists sided
with wave mechanics as it was easy to visualize. In a letter to Wolfgang Pauli, Heisenberg wrote
that he found this idea of visualization as crap . However he admitted that wave mechanics
had an advantage of visualization but he was still against it. He thought to give his matrix
mechanics a sense of visualization and thus ended up giving his uncertainty principle which has
far greater and deeper implications than we are taught. If you guys are thinking why was
Heisenberg so much against it, I've got an interesting story I read from the net (don't know if it's
true or not as I didn't research much about it) According to it Heisenberg and his crew were all
requested to give lectures in universities about Matrix mechanics and to be appointed as
professors. His family was exerting pressure to capture one of the vacancies as older theoretical
physicists were leaving and at the last moment Schrodinger pulled out his trump card, THE

WAVE MECHANICS

[1].

So according to him questions like What is the position of the particle, What is going on inside
the atom, What is the path of the particle are totally meaningless UNLESS one defines a
specific experiment that measures that specific property, i.e. the sole act of measurement gives
meaning to terms like position, momentum etc of the particle.
Have you ever wondered just why is it that we cant measure position and momentum
simultaneously... If you dont know, well then be ready to get your answer. You can measure the
position of a particle through an electron microscope but in order to know its position you first
have to illuminate the particle by striking it with light or any other EMR (Electromagnetic
radiation). The thing is the smaller the wavelength, the greater the resolving power of the
microscope and the greater the accuracy with which you measure the position. But since its a
particle not a macroscopic object, if you strike it with high energy radiation it will cause a
collision thus causing a change in its momentum. So at the instant you know its position i.e. at
the instant light or more specifically a photon collides with particle its momentum changes and
you cant determine it simultaneously. But in actuality HUP isnt You cant measure position and

momentum simultaneously its more The more accurate you measure position, the greater
spread or variance you get in momentum. So we could use low energy photons to illuminate
the particle now the position is a little blurry but the change in momentum is less than the
previous case, hence the spread in the values of the momentum will be less.
Now all of this is maybe a bit too technical. A great example I found while surfing online is,
consider you are blind. You gauge the distances of the nearby object by throwing a rubber ball
and having a feel for the time it takes for it to strike that object and reflect back to you. Think of
the objects as having the same weight as paper. So you threw the ball, as soon as the ball
strikes the object, it displaces the ball comes to you so you know where the object was but
you dont know where it is now. The act of measuring or observing changed it. This is more
commonly known as the Observer Effect and is often mixed up with HUP but its different. Its
just that the act of measurement changes the system. Thats what is actually happening above.
The act of measuring the position changes its momentum. You get me? Oh and dont confuse
the Observer Effect with Measurement problem its something different.
Apart from that Heisenberg even thought that the sole act of measurement or observing gives
existence to a value for that property. As stated by Heisenberg himself,

The "path" comes into existence only when we observe it.

-Heisenberg, in uncertainty principle paper, 1927.
If this rings a bell for you good, if not let me explain. It has been an assumption from old times
(maybe from Newtons?) that there exists an objective reality i.e. a reality that is independent of
us, whether we observe it or not it exists. Its like saying The moon exists even if we cant see
it. This meant that everything had its own path, momentum etc its just that we dont know
because we have not measured or observed it yet. But now according to Heisenberg our act of
observing gives meaning and creates a particular value for that property. Itd be like saying The

moon exists only if we see/observe it.

different views in Quantum Mechanics.

Absurd isn't it? These are actually the two

One says that QM is a tool, things exist and have their own value, it's just that we cant observe
them properly because the tool is inefficient and not complete yet. The other says, no, it's reality
itself that is blurred and by observing it we give it existence or proper meaning.
Bear with me when I say, mostly the second idea is followed. The first one is known as hidden
variable theory . Im not going into detail as to what it is. Hey wait a second, you guys arent
thinking its bullshit, right? You arent thinking How can observing gives existence to a damn
moon. That is why "QM is damn AWESOME", just keep on reading.

Back to where we were. So summing it up, according to Heisenberg measurement gives

meaning and existence and this was the conflicting idea between him and Einstein. Id like to
paste a conversation of Einstein with Heisenberg[2] :

Heisenberg: "We cannot observe electron orbits inside the atom...Now, since a good theory
must be based on directly observable magnitudes, I thought it more fitting to restrict
myself to these, treating them, as it were, as representatives of the electron orbits."
"But you don't seriously believe," Einstein protested, "that none but observable
magnitudes must go into a physical theory?"
"Isn't that precisely what you have done with relativity?" I asked in some surprise...
"Possibly I did use this kind of reasoning," Einstein admitted, "but it is nonsense all the
same....In reality the very opposite happens. It is the theory which decides what we can
observe."
If you notice the underlined parts, that is where the contradiction liesHeisenberg thought that
a theory should have only those properties that can be observed whereas Einstein was of the
view that a theory itself decides what we can observe. If you talk about me, I think Einstein here
has the view that there is an objective reality, everything exists and a theory decides which
things we can observe. If I think like that it supports the idea why Einstein later opposed the
theory provided by Bohr and Heisenberg.
Phew so that in essence was Heisenbergs uncertainty principle, wanted to keep it short but it
got big anyway. I dont think I have space here to start a new topic so see you in the next article.
Ill probably talk about wave particle duality and measurement problem which is at the heart of
QM.
References:
[1] The story that I talked about and the thing about the letter both can be found on this site
https://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p08.htm
[2]The conversation can be found here..
https://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p07c.htm
If you guys want to study more deeply the HUP, I find this site quite useful and much of the
matter is taken from here, just simplified it. Much of my knowledge came from this site. The
Uncertainty Principle (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
You can find all my articles on this forum. (Username is Eternal Blizzard)
http://www.pakgamers.com/forums/f84/